OP,
Clearly you are in the right. This is not your responsibility and you are right to push back.
BUT, let's be honest here. How much below market rent are you paying?
You can't pay below market rent and then expect the owner to maintain the property as if it was rented at market value (I mean they exist, but are rare). And if you are paying market rent, then you need to leave asap and find a better rental.
The picture is actually not evidence of anything, but according to your posts about stove burners and this in such a short time, you either need to get used to this owner or leave. Otherwise, you will be pissed off again and again. It's not worth it.
Best of luck!
I'm interested to know why you assumed we are paying less than FMV. When we signed the lease, it was at FMV (give or take). Now, that was 7 months ago in a hot market, so now it is probably below FMV, but so is any other property here that didn't sign a lease in the last ~3 months.
We signed a 3 year lease, so moving is not an option. And this is not a cheap property. It's an anti-mustachian mcMansion (nearly 5000 sqft). We selected it because my spouse's job moved to the burbs and it was actually cheaper to rent this than a far more modest home closer to the city (especially given tight inventory at the time of year we were looking and the very beginnings of the RE explosion). But it's not a low-end property where one should expect more frequent landlord issues. It would sell for nearly $1m. (We are in a very HCOLA, but this is a long commute--though people do make it--from the major metro areas. Just so happens that DH's job transferred him from that area to a location dropped in the middle of suburbia. 7 minutes commute FTW!) Which is all the more reason it is ridiculous that the owners are letting it rot out from under them--they should have a great deal of equity to tap for necessary repairs if they can't cash flow it, and it is a huge asset they are letting depreciate more than necessary because they are penny wise and pound foolish. And we aren't talking tens of thousands of dollars in repairs (yet, though more water incursion could get them there).
Also, they raised the rent from the last tenant (lived there ~2 years) by $400/mo. In just the time we've been renting, that difference alone would probably come close to covering at least one set of doors. I know money is fungible and property taxes likely ate up some of that, but my larger point is that they are taking in a lot of money on this property and if they can't afford a few thousand dollars to replace doors that actively leak, then they are doing something very, very wrong. If you take in $40,000+ in rent on a property you've owned for 15 years and you can't afford necessary maintenance... yeah.
I'm not sure how that picture is not evidence that the doors (and their seals) are in terrible shape, since it shows the door's seal, in terrible shape. The point was that that any leaking is very clearly the fault of these doors, not the fault of my shoveling.
Thankfully, the email I sent saying that while I will shovel more frequently but don't want them to rely on that to prevent leaks in a failing door, and that I can't guarantee that snow will never reach the doors, went over well. They thanked me for "doing the best you can" and said that they know they "can't expect anything more than that". I was careful not to use the phrase, "I'll do what I *can*" because I *can* hire someone when I'm out of town or set an alarm to get up at 3am when we have a snowstorm so I can check the snow level and shove. I can do those things, but I won't. What I will do is go push a shovel when I'm home and snow starts accumulating. But I feel fairly confident that I've made the point that while I acknowledge snow can be an issue and will shovel accordingly, they can't confidently rely on that to cover their decision not to replace faulty doors.
I am "getting used to this" in the sense that I am now fully expecting them to be cheap, borderline negligent landlords. That's part of the reason I wanted to draw a firm line on this. I want the PM (and landlords) to know that I'm not just going to accept whatever they say or do. I was very polite and helpful in my email (regarding this, and also the roof leak we are in the middle of, that I'm sure they will "keep an eye on" in perpetuity and not address because it would mean spending money***), but I made it clear that I'll do what I will do, and was making no promises.
***I reported a water stain on the ceiling last Friday. They had a plumber out on Monday, but he determined it's not a plumbing issue as we all assumed since it was almost directly under a toilet. But it is also directly under where the wall of the 2nd floor meets the roofline of the first floor, so it is almost certainly a roof issue. I've been asked to "keep an eye on it", which seems to be their favorite phrase, and today the PM texted me to ask how the leak looked. (She lives 10 minutes away and got a lot of rain, but we got none.) Beyond that, they have not indicated they plan to even have someone come look at the roof. I'm okay with that because a stain doesn't bother me, but as a homeowner I'd be thinking of mold and rotting joists and whatever else is around that leak. And a 23 year old roof is something one should reasonably expect to have to replace, or at a minimum, repair.)